Peanut Butter & Jelly Bread

I recently bought a new cookbook called My Bread. It boasts a "revolutionary no-work, no-knead method." Now what bread lover could have resisted that? The recipe for Peanut Butter & Jelly Bread caught my eye on the first leafing through. I tried it once with disappointing results. Jelly leaked out during baking and burned on the sides of the loaves and the pan and the baking stone. But the finished product tasted good. Once I got past the burnt jelly. And the burnt peanuts. I vowed to try again in the future, with some modifications to the recipe.

The future came yesterday evening. I mixed the dough so that it could rise 12 hours and be ready to bake this morning. The first modification I made was to omit the peanuts from the dough. I think the peanuts in the dough of the first batch had allowed jelly to break through and burn. The peanuts would still be included in the recipe. Just at a different point. An interesting thing about this recipe is that water and peanut butter are blended and incorporated into the dough.

The next morning the dough had doubled in size and was ready for the next step. I divided it into quarters. (I had quadrupled the recipe). On a lightly floured pastry board, I spread each portion of the dough into a rectangular sheet about 8 inches wide by a foot long. Then I spread seedless black raspberry jam over the rectangle. I was careful this time to heed the warning about leaving an inch edge on all sides so that jelly wouldn't seep out. Now I added the peanuts which had been omitted earlier. I sprinkled them on top of the jelly.

Another modification I made was to leave out the peanuts from the bottom of the pan as well as from the top of the loaf once in the pan. They burned easily and made the egg wash difficult to apply. The sheet was then rolled up, much like a jelly roll. Carefully. Then ends were tucked under and the loaf placed in a oiled loaf pan. An hour more of rising and then into the oven for an hour and a quarter. The results were much better this time around.


Bon appétit!